The paper's editor and publisher, James Shannon, announced the closure on Friday. Shannon predicted that alternative voices like his will increasingly gravitate to the web "as opposed to the more costly print product that requires a level of support hard to obtain without excessive pandering in a free publication funded solely by advertising dollars." With a lineage that began in 1991 and evolved from predecessors Creative Loafing-Greenville and MetroBeat, the latest version of The Beat lasted 31 months. "(We) only wish we could have done it better and for a longer period of time," said Shannon. "But hell, at least we tried."
A recent story about Gannett distribution networks published in Des Moines' Cityview mistakenly reported that Greenville, S.C.'s MetroBeat "now exists only online." (The mistake was repeated in a similar story published earlier this month in The Billings Outpost.) In fact, MetroBeat no longer exists, having been replaced by The Beat, which became an AAN member in June and celebrated its 1st anniversary on July 25. The confusion stems from the fact that the Beat's owner, James Shannon, was the editor of MetroBeat when it was shuttered and initially kept the name going online before launching his new publication in 2005.
Eight of the prospective members are previous applicants, and two are owned by alt-weekly veterans who had been members during a previous association with different papers. AAN members will also be asked this year to evaluate Boston's Weekly Dig and Des Moines' Cityview, the first two post-sale newspapers whose membership will be reviewed under a process established in 2004 when the association's bylaws were amended. The fate of all of these papers will be determined at the organization's next Annual Meeting, which will be held in Little Rock on Saturday, June 17, the last day of the 29th annual AAN convention.
